You mention the marketing strategies of big corporations.
I don't know whether you can cast your mind back to the 1950s.
I can, and distinctly remember full-page ads in the evening newspapers for Pelaco, featuring an Aborigine in a gleaming white shirt and the copyline "Mine tinkit they fit!"
Nice one.
Almost as good as the packaging by Kraft which featured a negro's head and the branding "Coon" cheese.
How about the steel wool packets, also featuring a negro and the brand "Nigger Boy" steel wool.
Your children are growing up in a culture which once regarded it as normal, and perhaps desirable, to look down on non-white people.

I believe that this ("Only white girls can be princesses") attitude is rapidly disappearing, along with the generations that couldn't see anything wrong with the word "nigger".

My upbringing was predominantly "white", but fortunately my parents held no views - either derogatory or patronising - about other races. Consequently I was able to reach adulthood free of prejudices despite having no contact at all with black people.

I do however question some of the ideas put forward here.

>>Fifteen out of the 21 children preferred the white doll when asked to chose "the nice doll"... Then again perhaps a succession of racist white teachers or fellow white students over time have made disparaging remarks that belittled their race.<<

If these remarks had been a motivating factor behind the kids' attitude towards the dolls, wouldn't they have referred to the white doll as nasty, rather than nice?

The other anecdote that gave me pause was:

>>She... wrote in her best hand writing that she was "proud to be an Aborigine first and loved playing tennis second"... all her class mates, from my subtle inquiries with other parents, didn’t make any reference to their race, colour or religion.<<

There's just a touch of double standards here. If the class mates had all written that they were "proud to be white", how would/should the school have reacted? Does this personal pride in race not perpetuate the problem, rather than work towards eradicating it?

It happens that the majority of my son's immediate circle of friends are from non-European backgrounds. And it is a matter of "pride" to me that he has not once, ever, commented or remarked upon this fact. Which gives me some hope that it is indeed a generational problem, and that the current generation - given the chance - will grow out of the problem once and for all.

Ponder - I hope that the word "once" (as in a "a society which once considered it...") is the operative word. I, for instance have never heard or seen the advertisments to which you allude, nor have my children so it would seem that we have, as a society, moved on from such blatant discrimination which seems ubelievably shocking in a modern context.

But on the question of skin colour, I have had curious experiences since moving to China. The supermarkets and chemists here are full of skin "whitening" creams, potions and liquids. I was extremely curious about these products when I first arrived.

My classes are huge and, in an effort to try to keep names straight, on the first day of the semester I asked students to introduce themselves alliteratively (Happy Harry, Pretty Penny etc) - a good excercise both in self-evaluation and ice-breaking. I was puzzled by "Yellow Yolanda" and "Ugly Ursula" and remonstrated at the latter. It was explained that they were too "dark" and therefore unapealing.

Many students consider themselves ugly for this reason. We've had a lot of discussions since then on this question. It seems that culturally, white skin has been consideredthe mark of beauty and high caste both here and in Japan for centuries - neither of which countries have had significant contact with Western colour prejudice.I remain confused about what conclusions to draw from this.

On a lighter(!) note: it seems I have inadvertantly become a role model, however. At the end of last semester I was told that, when I arrived I was considered pretty ugly - I am not black but my family on my mother's side are Romany. I am however somewhat eccentric in both appearance and personality.This has apparently now been declared 'cool' so it appears that students now consider also that being "dark" can be cool!

It is to be fervently hoped, however, that our discussions on race and prejudice have contributed the most to this conclusion.

I can remember when everyone aped the 'Poms' and actors had to develop English accents to get work.

That culture was set by the conservative Robert Menzies, who worshipped the British and royalty, as evidenced by his ingratiating comment about the Queen: 'I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die.'

Howard worships Bush and English royalty and rarely Australian culture. No wonder it is confusing.

Unlike the author I would not draw any deep conclusions about dolls, our children had dolls of all descriptions. They saw no difference. Princesses were irrelevent because these are modern children.

Friends moan that their children when young did not like the imposition of the parent's culture and language at home. However this is more likely to do with the natural rejection by children of rules imposed by parents. It is a task of their development that children become independent.

Further, children want to fade into the 'crowd' for a time while they develop. Children like parents and their parent's preferences to exist in the background and I recall my sisters demanding that they be dropped off a block away from school because they were embarrassed by their very young siblings. No-one else cared that we had a big family, but my elder sisters did.

To the author I would say relax and breathe a bit because if the home life is supportive for the children (as opposed to always giving priority to the parent's egos, values and needs) there will come a time when they are interested to return to their family history and culture.

An easy way to turn children off is to try to make them little images of their parents, warts and all. So as a tip, give the victim baggage a rest, at least around the home. Have confidence in your children and give them room to develop.

Romany wrote "t was explained that they were too "dark" and therefore unapealing"

I've noticed this and pondered about this long and hard in the past...its very prominent in Africa. eg skin lightener called 'ambi' which on chronic use causes multicoloured lighter on dark skin by which time the women are older, but does not stop the young girls using it...

There appears to be a cultural connection between 'dark' and bad/evil/destructive is eastern and western. eg canonical names http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~joanna/misc.html

So dark skin bad, and dark nail polish is evil nature, etc. Interestingly 'too white' is seen as defect too, as pale white being of weak (genetic) makeup

Thankfully, the change is that 'we are all shades of brown and its all cool' as the new trend...and I think we all can be relieved and happier about skin color is no longer a major divisive issue...

Good article on 'races of man' with some notable(infamous) quotes eg abraham lincoln http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Lifescience/HumanRaces/RacesMan/RacesMan.htm

Sam
Ps~that point of 'proud to be aboriginal' was noted and good for pride of origin, I think bad that the color (on picture) was made an issue...I know we are talking of young child here, but they always reflect the parents whom they imitate...I think if my child with her picture asked 'am i good'...I will be very proud that my child noted my struggle to find the balanced answers to whats before me in life...

Pericles: Good points.

For those wondering about why in many non-Western cultures, darker skin is perceived as less desirable, it may be for the same reason that fair skin (at least on women) was perceived as more desirable well into the twentieth century. At one level, darker skin implies exposure to the sun. Prior to our nations developing (and perhaps still holding in developing nations), exposure to the sun implied that one did manual labour, and thus, was from a lower socio-economic class. The converse, fair skin, implied either indoor work (which generally meant a higher level of pay) or no work at all and a life of leisure due to being fabulously wealthy and not needing to work. Maybe these old stereotypes die hard, even though they don't take into account genetics?

Interestingly, I believe the term "blue blood" is also based on race. I once read somewhere that during the Moorish occupation of much of Spain, one test for whether someone had the right to inherit a Christian throne was if you could see the blue blood (ie. veins) through their skin. If not, it probably meant they had some Moorish (or maybe even Jewish) ancestry.

So Stephen Hagan's daughter is the only one of her classmates to draw a distinction on race - doesnt that imply she has soaked up racist attitudes that her classmates dont have? I would have thought this was a bad thing, not good as the author implies.

Perhaps the children in the study were co-erced into making a decision that reflects badly on attitudes towards blacks - I noticed that the questions (like so many in studies and surveys) were closed. That is, you HAD to choose a good doll and a bad doll. If the question was framed more along the lines of "does either of these dolls look bad to you" then I be much more accepting of the results as showing a bias. Were the dolls dressed identically, and have their hair styled in the same way? If not, then choices could have been made based on fashion/dress preference.

Romany referred to his/her experience with skin colour in China. Maybe one could draw some inferences from the small sample, maybe not.

However there is more evidence that Chinese prefer round, moon faces, which have long been regarded as being beautiful. There is a stack of evidence to support this assertion which would gladden the heart of a certain Australian TV personality. Then again there was the preference for large ears, as evidenced through the centuries in Chinese art.

I wonder if anyone could draw some 'racist' origins for such preferences. It is not surprising how research can support the researcher's bias.

I think that the social standing / skin shade observed by Romany in China is related to how long someone spends in the sun. A peasant will spend hours in the field exposed to the sun, and thus have darker (perhaps subtly darker, but darker none-the-less) skin than the nobility. Thus lighter skin is to be preferred. If you see a woman in sunny Queensland walking along with an umbrella to shade her from the sun there is a very good chance that she will be asian.

The western love of the suntan is a recent phenomenon. Until recently the paler the complexion the better. Lots of songs and poetry from a few hundred years ago have heroines (and often heroes) with "snow white" or "milk white" skin. Snow White herself was intended to be the epitome of beauty. Again it's a class thing; white skin, upper class; tanned skin, peasant.

Quite where Michael Jackson fits into all this I'm not too sure!

Stephen Hagan like most of his predominately Anglo Indigenious brothers just love to dwell in victim status,since that just gives them more excuses for not trying harder.

I see a lot of black rappers,models and now actors on our TV screens.He makes no mention of them.

Indians have very dark skin,yet they are becoming the next economic powerhouse of our planet.Bollywood has it's own princesses of dark skin and they don't cry foul.

Beauty and ugliness is not a matter of skin colour,but the unfair dice of our genetic history which determines facial and body proportion.

Life is not fair Stephen,so learn to adapt and make the most of what you have.

It seems a tad ironic that white girls buy tanning lotions to make their skin dark and dark people in some countries buy lotions to make their skin look white. It seems we are never content with the way we look.

One point about this article, would my child be allowed to stand up and say "I'm proud of being white." Would that not be considered by the aborigines to be a white supremicist statement.

I don't think most men could care less about the colour of a woman's skin. I don't know how the woman feel about it!

I grew up in the north west, attended a mixed race state school. We didn't "see" differences among us, we were just a bunch of Aussie kids.
Mr Hagen's articles always have a 'victim' whinge about them, has he ever heard of Reverse Racism? it just oozes out of his posts.

Shorbe and Reynard - yes, I'm well aware that white skin is regarded as the province of the elite and dark skin of the peasant class. This after all was part of Hitler's reason for his plan to rid the world of gypseys of all kinds, including the Romany: they did not conform to the Aryan ideal of pale, blonde heauty. He succeeded almost as well as he had hoped.

My confusion though, stems from the fact that Mao Zedong spent decades stamping out elitism - communist rule still maintains this societal levelling. I pointed out that Western colour prejudice had never pertained in China. So I find it peculiar that in the last ten to twenty years this prejudice - which must be elitist - has surfaced once again to the extent that some of my students experience self-esteem issues.

The Cultural Reolution furthered the levelling of caste prejudice by producing a society in which even the respect traditionally given to scholars, artists and poets was tamped down. The Worker became the cultural hero; ergo one would expect that differing complexions would not be regarded as signifiers either of beauty or its lack? Or, if they were, that paler complexions would not find favour. That's why I find the implications give much food for thought.

Regarding another point made by a previous poster who asks whether the author has ever heard of "Reverse racism"? This is not the first time I have seen the phrase used in OLO forums and I confess to finding it confusing. Racism is prejudice directed towards someone as a result of their race. Surely then the obverse of this - "reverse racism" - would be lack of prejudice directed towards someone as a result of their race. Why would this be a bad thing? Isn't that exactly what we are all striving towards?

Romany, Why must it be elitist. Australians, Africans and South American and North American and Polynesian Natives etc. painted themselves. White happens to be a contrasting colour for them as it is for Asians. Celtic tribes at one time painted themselves red, yellow, blue, or black depending on the availability of mineral or plant dyes. These colour contrast well with while skin.
It's like saying Polynesians chose to tattoo themselves with a black ink because it was a cultural way of celebrating their blackness? Then again if your brought up on racism your sure to find it everywhere if you look hard enough for it.
You can't say you haven't taken your prejudices with you. Everything doesn't distill down to race. Sometimes it just about colours and how we untilize them because they contrast.
And what is Mao's "decades of stamping out of elitism. China has a very active elitism under Mao's politburo and always has. China today(last couple of decades) has had a triple tiered society. The governing class, those working the economic zones( a separate group of elites income wise) and every one else who live and work outside of the economic zones. There is a fourth if you want to dissect rural farm life in China.

Romany, "reverse racism" - would be lack of prejudice directed towards someone as a result of their race."

Reverse racism or reverse discrimination includes discriminatory policies or acts that benefit a historically socio-politically non-dominant group (typically minorities or women), at the expense of a historically socio-politically dominant group (typically men and majority races).
Particularly in the United States, the term is used to imply that underqualified members of minority groups are being hired and promoted instead of more qualified members of majority groups.
In particular, racial quotas for collegiate admission to government-run institutions were held to be unconstitutional in the United States.

Aquavius - Thanks for explaining about reverse racism. I now understand in what context it is used.

But am still having trouble getting my head around it: the verb "to discriminate" means to treat differently- either favourably or unfavourably - because of racial or social grouping rather than individual merit.

Promoting or accepting someone based only upon their membership of a different socio-economic/racial group is discrimination. Whether they are a member of the dominant group or not, and whether they are being discriminated against favourably or unfavourably they are still not being accepted on merit. Do you see what I mean? And do you also see that I am not blaming/slating/accusing/burning anyone else for my own inability to see the validity of the term?

And whoa...hang on there a minute, mate. Where did the accusation of racism spring from? Did you read my first post? I noted it curious and puzzling that in modern China a huge growth industry has emerged based on whitening creams and lotions. I didn't draw any conclusions from this observation.

In both that post and the second I specifically pointed out that this trend was not, either culturally or historically, underpinned by racism or elitism.

Why elitism? Well, because, as others also pointed out, another reason those with dark skin have been taught to believe this is not a good thing is because milk-white skin was once considered the province of the elite, non-labouring classes. I went on to point out that if this were the reason the trend would still be puzzling in China because workers have been glorified.

The author of the article - which is what we are discussing - was saying children are conditioned by society to think white is wonderful and so considered dark ugly. I was just observing that in a country where you can't blame social conditioning a trend is also growing that considers white is desirable and wondering why. I thought maybe others would also either find it peculiar or speculate upon reasons. No personal conclusions. Just the observation of a strange phenomena. Period.

Arjay, predictable post from you again. You want everyone to believe Steve Hagan's little boy is not a victim of racist violence because it doesn't fit with your white epistemology of the world. You're a hard man.

Romany, my post wasn't supposed to come off accusatory. I should have wrote "we can't say we don't carry our prejudices with us."
I'll restate. Then again if your brought up on racism your sure to find it everywhere if you look hard enough for it.
There is all kinds of racism. What you see with the Chinese girls using skin whiteners(?), whites have been doing the same for as long as I can remember. Sun tanning ring any bells? Do we say whites hate themselves because they're not golden brown. Tanning Salons on every street corner. That they're conditioned by society to be not white? We brag about how well we tan or as a kind of reverse racism we brag about how fair we are and that like vampires we just mustn't spend anytime in direct sunlight.
Your very right to wonder especially with the ease by which some "sociologist" like to attribute a sinister anti social "reason" behind the most mundane human expression that crosses all colours and cultures. Trapped by the limited understanding of their own history and selling a liberal view of human socialization, much of the sociology of the last 50 years is left trend reverse racism or anti-white bias intent on manufacturing victims of the white hoard as it swept across the globe nonsense. Of course they always seem to conveniently forget to include the many other "hoards" that have swept the globe through out human history, and with out cultivating a total cultural and racial guilt trip.

Romany RE; reverse racism

My previous post refers to the fact that the author of the article said how proud he was when his child stood up in class and said "I'm proud to be Aboriginal." I asked "and what if a white child stood up in a class that contained some aboriginals and said "I'm proud to be white". This would be interpreted by Aboriginies as an example of declaring white supremacy or as racism.

This is reverse racism-: When its Ok for one race to make proud utterances and praise of their race but they call it racism when another race does the same thing. It means that they declare this sort of behaviour as racist on the one hand but call it the reverse(non-racism) on the other hand, when their race does it.

You declare you pride to be white every post Sharkfin, you're just not aware of it.

But I suppose for you thats is what its means to be white, ie, not really knowing what it means at all and never having to explain it beyond the color of your skin. Why? Because you don't have to, cos you think the world is a place where you don't have to explain your own racial background on a daily basis to people who are not white --and who are incidently the majority of the worlds population.

Reverse Racism you cry? LOL

Go figure!

Sharkfin, I think that there is a difference between saying "proud to be an Aboriginie" and "proud to be black". I had to think long and hard about it, but I do believe that there is a difference. I am proud of my heritage and the "races" that contributed to my gene pool, but not proud to be white. That said I dont have any hang-ups because I am white, its just that I dont see it as an identifying feature. I see myself as Australian, with a heritage of English, Scottish, Prussian, Polish and Jewish cultures, and I find it quite interesting exploring family history and the interaction of these quite different cultures

Rainier, I dont think that there is a majority of white in the world population, well at least not if you are comparing white against coloured, so I suppose it depends on your point of reference. I just look at the fact that between China and India you have a third of the entire population, then take into account Africa, South America and Arabia. You can then debate whether Greeks and Italians are white or otherwise. Certainly they are European, but different to the English, for example.

As a proud Anglo-Celtic-German-French-Australian ( and after six or seven generations probably qualify for being indigenous i.e. occuring naturally in a location) who usually comments on education posts, I am bemused that our Aborignal-Australian, who refers to African-Americans, although wallowing in victimhood, manages to regale us subtly with the fact that his children attend private schools! Being a victim can't be all soursobs and thistle then!

Victim hood? mmm? That's an easy way to avoid the facts of history or moral recognition that these facts usually elicit from people with high emotional intelligence.

I see absolutely no lack of integrity or character in pointing out this history, me a victim? walk a mile in my shoes and see if you can keep up with me.

Whiteness as you explain and understand it emerged as "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race," especially so as to distinguish them from people with whom they had very particular legal and political relations -- Africans, Asians, American Indians, Aborigines -- that were not seen and intellectually equal to their relations with one another as "whites."

ie, Whiteness was invented first, then you invented the rest of us to protect yourselves against us.

When you understand the benign and covert effects of racism then by all means declare what you want.

But from my angle you've got a long way to go.

Anyone being proud of "their" race has always seemed a little odd to me. It's not like I helped Ludwig Van write any of his famous symphonies, or as though I had a hand in helping Fleming or Florey discover the miracle mould, and so on. Thus, it seems a bit odd when non-white people also try to lay claim to "their" cultures.

Shorbe - despite the fact that they are frequently conflated in this forum, "race" and "culture" are quite distinct concepts.

Mind you, I think the entire notion of human 'races' is itself a cultural construct. As indeed are the values attached to 'whiteness' and 'blackness'. For example, while black is the colour associated with death and mourning in Western cultures, in some Eastern cultures white is the colour of death - i.e. the exact opposite, thus demonstrating the culturally arbitrary nature of colour symbolism.

Further, since there's more genetic variation within the so-called races than between them, when many people - including some of the most prolific racial ranters here - talk about 'race', they invariably describe it in 'cultural' terms.

This is, of course, racism - albeit in a fairly benign form. However, the tacit acceptance of this kind of racism creates the cultural space for the emergence and sustenance of more sociopathic racist ideologies.

Which is also why racism needs to be exposed whenever it raises its ugly head, and I'm grateful to Stephen Hagan for contributing another article that provokes thought and comment about some of the ingrained racisms inherent in Australian culture and society.

C J Morgan: I agree about the genetic arguments against a notion of race. When people talk about race, they're usually talking about culture these days. That still doesn't explain how someone born now can take any credit or pride in something done by someone else, especially if that other person was born four hundred or forty thousand years ago.

"Which is also why racism needs to be exposed whenever it raises its ugly head, and I'm grateful to Stephen Hagan for contributing another article that provokes thought and comment about some of the ingrained racisms inherent in Australian culture and society."

I hope you also mean, as has already been pointed out, the ingrained racisms that make it okay for someone to take pride in being virtually anything other than of (northern) European descent, yet see anyone who has pride in being Anglo as some sort of redneck (which is, ironically, a racist term also). Or, how anyone who lauds the "inherent" onesness with nature of Aboriginal people is a visionary, yet anyone who dares to suggest the "inherent" problems of alcohol and substance abuse, paedophilia, and so on is automatically sent to the sin bin.

There is no real debate on race in this country. What we have is a complete non-debate moonlighting as a debate, with both sides firmly entrenched behind barbed-wire, and anyone daring to step into no man's land getting shot to pieces by either or both sides. There probably won't ever be a serious debate either as there are too many vested interests (on both sides) to frame this as anything other than a black and white (pardon the pun) discussion.

Defining race - depends on which method one uses. Since the 1940's evolutionary scientist speak of race in terms of custom and self identity and understand race as a social construct. Culture being a very large part of that social identity.

Other scientist include self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry, but that they correspond to multilocus genetic data.

White and black are not races but, one small aspect of the total complexity of genetic, custom, culture, socialization, geography, and history of a given people as defined by themselves as a group.
There are many white races, many black races and many yellow races. The skin hue of humankind is, along with features, very noticeable differentiation between races. That one should be mocked for that different hue or feature is maybe the most blatant use of racism. However there are many other forms of racism that go unchallenged and used by all races.

That only white people can be racist or are racist is nonsensical and a racist statement in itself.

Yes, but colour blindness theory does not explain how the world has been organised by whiteness and white privilege.

And all this anthropological theorising is a wank.

Anthropology was born out of racist theory - It always gives me a giggle to see posters here trying to theorise and explain away its historical roots here on OLO.

First of all, let me say I love corporate America! I don't understand how the word "corporation" has become this dirty word that describes some evil, conspiring entity. A corporation is made up of people like you and I. They market things based on what they know people like. Anyhow, that being said:

EUROPEAN (White) People are the most attractive people in the world!

People like to look at attractive people. Everybody wants to look at them and be like them in appearance. They are beautiful! It's that simple.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself, why do spanish language channels use the most light-skinned hispanics. Why do blacks and hispanics like to straighten their hair, color it blonde, and/or lighten their skin appearance with makeup? Look at Hugh Heffner's live-in playmates, notice any commonalities? Just saying the truth.

Rick0: I think it depends. From my time in Europe, I can personally say that there's not one hot woman in the whole of the British Isles, yet eastern Europe is overflowing with them. Likewise, the U.S. can be a bit hit and miss -- some very good looking, some not at all.

As far as non-white people, I actually think that mixed races tend (on average) to turn out quite attractive. The only problem is that because Caucasian genes tend to be recessive, the mix is very far in the direction of the non-Caucasian. That's not to say they can't be attractive, but that 3/4 Caucasian is a bit more balanced. I've never seen (or met) someone who is 1/4 black, Hispanic or Asian who isn't absolutely gorgeous.

I'm not sure why that might be (other than my own subjectivity), but it might be to do with a broader, more balanced gene pool. I had an Irish friend who hypothesised that the Irish were so much uglier than the Hungarians because the Irish had such a small gene pool, and so everyone tended to look the same (ie. all snaggle-toothed and funny), whereas everyone had been through Hungary and left their genes behind. Maybe it's just because everyone in the British Isles just eats fish and chips and doesn't get any exercise.

It is difficult to fully understand the experience of racism, if it is unlikely to affect you personally. To dismiss anybody who expresses this experience as being a victim is sloppy. Racist comments, hopefully made mostly without intention to cause offence, is a fact of life for non ‘whites’.

The study sounds interesting, but CountryGal has a very important point in wanting to know how the questions were framed. Especially considering the age of the children. I’m a bit doubtful that children that young would have any more notion of race as they would have of gender.

I don't suppose shorbe has any appreciation at all of how quintessentially racist was their most recent comment above?

C J Morgan: I was simply stating my (declared subjective) attraction to particular looks. I realise not everyone would find attractive what I do, and vice versa. I'm not saying there's any underlying rightness or wrongness to this. It's no more or less racist than saying I prefer a particular cuisine.

As for the bit about people from the British Isles, it's somewhat tongue in cheek, although it was interesting that my Irish friend volunteered that theory. Generally though, if you ask people to name countries from whence attractive people hail, the British Isles will not be high on the list. Straw polls on people's attractiveness to people from Brazil and the Czech Republic reveal the opposite.

shorbe they are all nationalities, not races, doh!

Rainier, "Anthropology was born out of racist theory - It always gives me a giggle to see posters here trying to theorise and explain away its historical roots here on OLO."

Oh Rainier please tell us who's roots there lies the theory racism.

I saw the documentary 'A Girl like Me' last year and I was shock at the results of the doll test. I'm sure many outsiders were surprise aswell. For those who don't know, or understand the history of African people in America and elsewhere its hard for them to relate to the people in the documentary. Slavery segregation colonialism did more than just kill millions of Africans. Those years of racism has left a long lasting effect generations after. Oprah Winfrey (one of the riches woman in America, descendant of African slaves)struggle with racism as an adult and child. Michael Jordan spoke about racism when he was younger also. Because Africans in America accomplished so much for the world to see still doesn't change their history.

Truthfully speaking, although people like Native Americans, Asians and others experience racism because their minorities and somewhat different to Europeans. I don't think they've been through the large scale global racism and discrimination the same way Sub Saharan African people have. When you look at slavery and how it removed millions of people from their natural homes , then you may get a full understanding of it. The effects of colonialism.The years of world and American media portraiting African people in products,movies,advertistment as inferior is still deeply rooted in many societies.

Amel, not to try to take away from the experience of the sub-saharan african people subjected to slavery, but they were not the only ones. Nor were Europeans the only slave masters. There were many african slaves captured by the arabs and sent as far as china, although you dont see the remnants of it, because they were mostly men, and were mostly castrated to avoid any chance of breeding with the local population. In addition to this, there were also more than 1 million white european slaves held in north african and arab countries, mainly in the last 1000 years (up to around 1750 from memory). These came from all over Europe, although coastal villages in the British Isles suffered heavily from raids by the barbary cosairs, who sold them in slave markets, often to Morocco.

So to imply that whites were the only evil slave masters is a fallacy, although a popular one.

Country,

I never said Sub Saharan Africans were the only ones to experience slavery. My post was about the impact slavery has had on African people. Whether they be celebrities, young kids or the generations before. Also colonialism and segregation and the millions of lives lost because of it. The removal of people from their continent. Losing their identity and being open to anything in their new racist countries. All these thing help to contribute to the condition and mental status of many SSA people. Thats why I said in all honesty, its hard for me to compare it to the situations of others. Not because of what you said about whites Arabs or Chinese.

Amel, not sure if you are still checking this thread, but just in case....

Perhaps the mindset of the descendants of slavery in the US is more from what they have learnt from their parents, rather than the true reality. If you are taught from an early age that you are worthless in the eyes of society, and that it is no fault of your own that you are in the situation that you are, and that there is nothing you can do about it, then of COURSE that is going to scar you for life. Now, the deep South of the US is an example where both sides still have deeply entrenched racist beliefs, but I think that they are atypical rather than the norm.

A lot of Australians descended from virtual slaves. Convicts who committed little crime, with some wrongly convicted. 2-3 generations ago this was considered to be shameful and to be hidden. Now it is a status symbol in our society to be descended from a convict. If these descendants can get over the stigma that used to be attached to this, then why the heck cant anyone else? Oh, it stops being a convenient excuse, thats why!